


not formed of myself alone

by LittleRaven



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 23:05:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15716934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/pseuds/LittleRaven
Summary: One girl in all the world and the girl she picked up on the street one night.





	not formed of myself alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raktajinos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raktajinos/gifts).



> Title from "Becomes the Color" by Emily Wells.

Little goosebumps rose along her arms with the wind. Buffy took the shot, nailing her vamp in the back of the neck from across the alleyway. Too easy. But hey. She didn’t need to put in extra work just to make it take longer. There was always another vampire waiting in the wings, thinking it was its time to lurk. No point in trying to keep her hands busy. She plunged and she moved on. 

So is the way of the Slayer, she’d learned. Today, Cleveland. Tomorrow, who the hell knew. As long as it wasn’t yesterday. Buffy pushed the thought away. It was of the past. Nothing mattered. She just had to keep Slaying. 

Weapon aloft, she strode out to the edge of the alleyway, looking out onto the street. Movement drew her gaze; a girl, scurrying off, gait awkward in her long skirts. Not far. Not the one she’d rescued; that girl had headed in the opposite direction. 

Buffy reached her with little more than seconds of sprinting. A hand on a shoulder, and she turned her around midrun. The girl stumbled, gasped, hair falling over her face. But her eyes were steady as she looked up at Buffy.

Buffy let her go. She’d been warm under her hand. Under Buffy’s gaze, the pulse beat in her throat as she tried to breathe. “Human.” 

Something in the girl’s face tightened at that. “Y-yeah. Human.” Buffy pivoted on her feet, about to leave her—this one was smart enough to already be running, not the easiest prey—when she continued. “So are you. Right?”

She turned back. Those eyes remained steady. Buffy met them with her own. “Sure. Why not. We’re both human. And you are what kind exactly, a thrillseeker?”

Not in those clothes. Clothes couldn’t be the answer to everything—that was another thing she’d learned—but they served well enough to describe the present. The present this girl lived in was more frumpy hippy. 

“You like watching people get killed? ‘Cause it’s not a spectator sport.”

That got the girl stepping forward. “No. I. I just thought maybe I could help. With the vampire.” She was firmer now, reaching for Buffy’s arm. “I could feel it.”

“You can feel vampires.” Buffy should be able to. Slayers could do it. It’d be a hell of a lot more useful than the prophetic dreams. She never had; and this girl could? “Wow,” she scoffed. 

Buffy’s scrutiny drove her to falter at last. Good. But when she turned, Buffy reached for her shoulder again. Her hand was gentler. “That’s not a common trait. Come on.”

 

Tara was definitely frumpy hippy. Buffy was glad she was still capable of making that kind of assessment. Go Buffy, you haven’t lost the ability to think like a cutesy little Barbie doll. “Barbies don’t think, so you’re off to a good start.” Her head jerked up. She’d said that aloud. 

“At least, that’s what they want you to believe.” Tara smiled over the crusty pages of the book in her hand, before blowing dust off them. 

Buffy looked at her and almost smiled. Cracking jokes at the Slayer. Well. She had been brave even with the stutter. 

“Living Barbies. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.” You’d get dresses, gowns even, and never had to eat or worry about anyone else again. You’d get a big pink house with an elevator, a gown, a whole family ready-made for you. All you had to do was exist and look pretty, and even that last part didn’t mean you’d have to do any of the work for it. “Nice and carefree, until someone pulled out your hair before dropping you out a window.” She leaned over her own book, untouched save for the mark her chin had left in the dust. 

Buffy spit on her hand, then swiped it over the dirt on her face. “Demon research, now. What’d you find?” 

“Uh, here.” Tara pushed a packet of wet wipes at her. “For someone who relies on these things, your Watcher doesn’t take care of his books,” she added at Buffy’s stare. 

“He’s not the caring type,” Buffy conceded, pulling the packet open. 

As long as she did the job. That’d been her argument when he’d flown in, tracking her down with aid from the Watcher’s Council. She didn’t have to stay with him unless she chose to do so. She didn’t have to ask him for permission to go out, or wait for him to give instructions. He was there for her to come to when she had a question, and to keep her in weapons. 

It hadn’t taken much of an argument. She didn’t need another Merrick. Neither did the Council. They were both at their best if they stuck to the jobs they were chosen for. 

Tara read aloud. Buffy let her, head falling forwards again as she watched. The dust coated her fingertips pressing down the edge of a page. It spread over the rest of the hand she lay there. 

They were both good with their hands, Buffy had learned. Her hands could choke, pummel, drive a stake through the thickest muscle and bone. Tara’s could slice, crush ingredients, stroke a spell out of a book when Buffy needed it. That was uneven. Buffy did things for the world, Tara for her. “Not just for you,” she told her once. “Remember, I was already trying to help. We do what we can, because we can. Because it’s right.”

She was right. Buffy had to do what she did; she could hardly do anything else. It’d been a nonstop rollercoaster in hell, being Called. What she’d been before, whatever she would’ve become, was burned away, until purpose remained, absolute in its rule. 

Maybe it was true for Tara as well. Buffy heard it in her words, sometimes: how the line of witches stretched behind her, secret, alone save for the students they found in their daughters. Real people, responding to the magic they saw in the other. 

She reached for Tara’s hand, stopped her mid-sentence. She slid a new wipe over it. It was slick between their hands. The pages dampened under them. 

Tara pulled the book away, and closed it. 

 

Buffy lay back. Tara’s hair rustled against her neck as she rested her head there, lying on her side. Her fingers remained on Buffy’s stomach, still for the moment.

“We might have to change the way we hold our meetings,” she said, then lifted her head, drawing away, hand withdrawn. “It’s okay if that’s not something you want to repeat.”

Buffy pulled her back; Tara landed atop her, and Buffy flipped them. She leaned over Tara, tugged gently on the hair fanning out on the thin pillow. Her own brushed Tara’s face. 

“It’s okay.” She looked at her, eyes steady. “It’s.” She cut herself off. Her leg swung over Tara’s hip, her hands settled on Tara’s face, then her breasts. Then Tara’s hands on her own. She slid them low. 

“Maybe a little more than okay,” Tara suggested. 

“Maybe.” She was learning, still. That was good. Still, there were things Buffy already knew. She broke one hand free, let it take her weight on the mattress as she bent her head and slowly gave Tara a kiss.


End file.
